


Melee

by alivehawk1701



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Violence, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alivehawk1701/pseuds/alivehawk1701
Summary: AU Fic, set in the trenches of WW1. Wilson is a medic and House is newly assigned to his unit. After a terrible loss, Wilson is less than excited to meet the new Colonel who has a sour attitude and a bum leg, but there is something about him . . .
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	1. Loss

“Larson! God  _ damn _ it!” I screamed as my fingers scrambled frantically around inside his neck, searching for the other end of the artery that had been severed in the last blast.

_ Can’t find it, can’t find it, come on, just find it, find it—damn it! Damn it! _

A blast not thirty feet from us almost made me fall off my knees, the roar in my ears deafening, crippling, as I recovered and threw myself over Larson’s body, one hand still in his neck, pinching the severed end of his jugular.

Dirt rained over us. Screams. Gun fire.

My fingers slipped, faltered—sticky blood and shredded bits of flesh slid around like so much raw meat under my fingertips. I couldn’t hold on to anything!

Larson sputtered blood; it hit my face like rain, dripping down my cheeks. Blood was soaking through my sleeves to my skin, climbing up the wool of my uniform, all the way up to my elbows. Out of him onto me. Gushing out of him. His panicked heart was frantically pumping it from his body with nowhere for it to go. I have to stop it.  _ Come on, Wilson, _ I begged myself,  _ you can do it, you can do it. _

“Hang on, Larson!” I ordered him, sobbing, my tongue thick in my mouth. All I could hear was ringing. The bombs had deafened me. He probably can’t hear me. He can’t even hear his own screams.

Another spread of machine-gun fire struck our area and I did the best I could to keep the resulting debris from getting into the wound, feeling the dirt fall all over my back instead, down the neck of my uniform.

My hand suddenly slipped from his neck. I lost the one end. God damn! Dirt crunched under my teeth, my boots were full of water, eyes squeezed shut, dust and smoke and gunpowder filled my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I realized suddenly that our combined weight was sinking us further down into the mud.

_ Stop! Stop firing! _ I begged silently, knowing they’d have to reload soon, it’d give me a few minutes, I only needed a few minutes.

Suddenly I realized my chest felt hot. It was Larson’s blood. The bullet that had hit his neck, barely one minute after we’d jumped from the trenches, had severed his jugular and almost decapitated him. The artery was spouting blood and since I was on top of him, shielding him from debris, it was covering me.

Firing stopped. They were reloading. I was on Larson again, hands at his neck _. Oh god, what’s left of it _ . There’s just a few strings of flesh and his trachea, everything else was—but he’s still breathing. He’s breathing. His eyes looked up into mine, his teeth red with blood, his whole face a mask of crimson except his eyes. His eyes are blue. So scared. Terrified. Each breath he took was forcing more blood out of him. But he was looking at me. He was looking at me. I started mouthing “no” over and over as he took three sharp wet, breaking gasps and his mouth hung open, jaw locked, tear filled eyes locked into mine, blinking once, twice, then—

“Tim!” I screamed, “Tim, don’t do this!!” I shook him, shook him hard, “No!! No, no, no, no, no!!” My cheek met the front of his uniform and I knew I was sobbing.

“Wilson!!” I heard, just barely, the voice a million miles away through the ringing in my ears, “Sergeant!!” A hand was at my shoulder, fingers like iron, “Wilson we need you!”

I put a bloody hand over my mouth, the other still clinging to Larson’s uniform. Don’t make me leave him. No, I’m not leaving him! If I do we’ll never get him back! He’ll get carted off and thrown in a grave somewhere! But the hand still dragged at my uniform until I fell back off my knees and kept pulling. With one last effort I surged forward and tore at the outside of Larson’s uniform, frantic, and managed to tear off one of his rank insignia from his singed and bloody collar, and gave in to the other pulling me.

I left him. I’m a medic. There were other lives to save. He was already dead.

That was a week ago. It was the most action we’d seen in months and now it was over. Over and we were back in the trenches. I never thought I’d be happy to see them again. We’d lost a lot of people. Too many people. But more kept coming. More and more. Each time we lost a batch of young men a new set popped up.

We’d lost our Colonel. Colonel Green. They were sending someone to replace him, apparently. Probably some fat, pretentious, swaggering asshole that had spent the last few years of his promotion picking bits of fig out of his teeth.

And now? Now I’m drinking. One of the boys, Robertson I think—well, he got a bottle of something and since he knew that Larson had died, that I was upset, he offered it to me. 

Every scorching gulp made its way down my throat, into my stomach, my liver be damned. I don’t care. I don’t give a shit. I rolled my liquor coated tongue around my mouth, raising a numb, clumsy hand to my forehead to push through damp, sweaty hair. 

_ I’m so sorry, Tim _ , I thought, miserably pulling at my hair.  _ There was nothing I could do. _

If only . . . if I had taken that bullet . . . if it had been me . . .

I took another drink, eyes rolling shut, swaying on my cot where I was sitting, back up against the wall. I sniffed, realizing snot was running from my nose, fighting tears that had been battling my own stubbornness, my own messed up sense of worthiness, the very thing that had gotten me into this mess, and even though I wasn’t making a sound the tears fell.

I’d left him on that field. Oh god, his mom. He told me about her shooting squirrels from their kitchen window. Of the potroast she’d make on Sundays with carrots from the garden and how’d she read him Mark Twain by candlelight when he couldn’t sleep as a boy. My finger slid inside my tunic pocket and found the warm piece of metal I’d taken from him.

Saw movement out of the corner of my eye and another figure came fuzzily into view through my squinted eyes. Couldn’t see who it was in the dark. Everything’s dark anyway. It’s always dark in the trenches. Dark and dead. Or on it’s way to being dead. 

“Hey Wilson,” the figure said. It made noise. So it must be a person. What did it want?

“Wilson . . . ” it chanted and I frowned, recognizing my name and recognizing the sludge I was wading through to focus.

“Hey,” it said again, “You alright, buddy?”

“Fine,” I mumbled, sliding my hand up to my neck. It was Cooper. Cooper was a friend. As much as friends could be here. When it came down to it we all hated it here. We’d believed in the same lie. That made us all fools. Fools together. That was comforting wasn’t it?

“Yeah right,” he responded, “You sure look fine.”

That was sarcasm right? “What?!” I asked defensively, “Can’t a man drink? I mean, it’s not like we’re doing anything.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, sitting down across from me on his bunk, “Go ahead, get it off your chest.”

“What da’ya mean by that?” I asked, rolling my eyes up to look at him. He was untying the laces on his boots. And he shrugged. Ah, trying for the casual, buddy approach. Nice. Yeah, I’ll just get this off my chest, no big deal, I’ll go and cry on your shoulder. Fuck you, I thought. Just fuck off.

“I mean about Larson,” he said.

My eyes closed. That name. He said it like lemon juice on a wound. Lemonade he was enjoying on a hot summer day while it stung and burned in my still open wound. Bastard. 

“What about him?” I asked, voice slurring horribly.

“He was your friend.”

“Yeah,” I breathed, eyes lowering to the dirt floor, to my boots which I’d cleaned but were still cracked and caked with blood and mud, “He was,” I upturned the bottle and drank more, feeling some of it drip from the corner of my lip, wiping it away, “He was my friend,” my voice cracked.

“I’m sorry,” Cooper said.

I laughed, opening my eyes, “You have no idea.”

He positioned his boots near the end of his cot, neat and in a line, then raised his elbows to his knees and thought for a moment, “I still can’t believe it, that I made it through. I just don’t know how it wasn’t me. It could have been any of us.”

I stared at him, eyes unfocused and almost half closed. He kept talking, voice low and pained as he took from his pack a tin of powder for his damp feet, “Why did that bullet hit Larson? Why not me? Why not you? It’s all chance. But why, why him, doesn’t make sense, there’s no sense to any of it,” he paused, eyes lowering, rubbing the chalk in between his toes, “Next time someone will be writing my mom, telling her I’m . . .” he shook his head, tugging off his coat, throwing it at the end of his bed, “Hey, can I have a drink of that?”

“Yeah,” I said, reaching my arm out across the gap.

“Thanks,” he answered, taking a gulp. He lowered the bottle and wiped his lips, “God, I needed that. War makes philosophers of us all,” he paused, holding the moment like someone would hold a sleeping animal, easily, patiently, “You ever think,” he wondered, “You ever think about what’s going to happen when all this is over?”

“What? When we win?” I said sarcastically.

“When we get to go home.”

I laughed, “No,” pressed my thumbs into my throbbing temples, “Never really made it past the if I get to go home part,” it was a half truth. I’d barely dared to think about what home would be after this. 

“You never dream about life after the war?”

“Dreams maybe,” I answered. I’d thought about it. Images of Tim flipped through my mind. Already faded and dull and tattered. Imaginary photographs that I’ll look at years from now imagining what could have been. I pictured us on a boat somewhere, his goddamn fishing boat that his family had in Michigan, I’d always told him I got sea sick, he’d insisted that was impossible on a lake . . .

“I do,” Cooper was saying, “I think about getting out,” he took another drink, wincing, “Except when I do that I can’t remember why I got in in the first place. Why did we get into this?”

“The Lusitania comes to mind.”

“Damn Huns,” Cooper sighed, taking another drink then passing it back to me. I accepted it, gratefully.

I’d lost enough today. Too much. I’d lost a future. I’d lost something to look forward to. I’d lost something to fight for.

Eventually I slumped down in my bed. I don’t even remember my eyes closing . . .


	2. Curiosity

“Wake up!” someone shouted, “Up and at’em you lazy bastards! We’ve got roll in ten minutes! Up! Up! Up!”

My eyes shot open, head instantly splitting in two. My stomach twisted and tried crawling up my throat.  _ Oh God . . . stop shouting . . . _

I crawled from the depths of deep, amber sleep, fighting my way to the surface, taking a gasp of air, the bleak, stale air of the trenches, struggling to focus on the blurry, dim shapes around me.

My brain sloshed to the side of my head and I realized I was sitting up, hand gripping my head, “What? What?” I asked in a hoarse voice.

Eyes that had snapped open immediately shut. There were a few blissful moments of “where am I?” “what’s going on?” before it all became nauseatingly familiar, the sights, the smells—I remembered. The other guys in my bunker were frantic, shouting, swearing, like a cyclone around me.

Cooper came into focus across from me, in front of his cot, followed by his voice, “Roll you idiot!” he scolded, jerking his braces over his shoulders and fumbling for his tunic, “New Colonel’s due any minute—you gotta get your sorry ass out of bed and—” his words were cut off as the itchy, khaki folds of my bed spun up toward me and the edges of my vision blackened. I felt his hands grip my shoulders and shove me back into a sitting position, his stocking feet on the dirt floor the only thing I could see as he gripped my collar and lifted me to my feet, “Up and at em’ solider,” he urged, standing too close. Too hot. I’m too hot. But cold. Dampness soaked my shirt, remnants of a terrible nightmare tugging and tangling around my mind, making me shiver. I’d sweated through my undershirt.

“No surprise,” Cooper said, stooping, trying to see my eyes, “I knew you’d regret last night,” he sighed.

Cooper was trying to be supportive. I know that. But it was pissing me off. Just let me lie back down, I thought bitterly.

He continued, “No one thought we’d get a new command this soon—apparently headquarters has a never ending supply of fat-cats,” he kept one hand on my shoulder for a moment so at least I wouldn’t fall over.

I nodded and struggled to say something, eyes scanning the ground for my boots, “I’m okay,” I told him, running a hand through damp hair, “I got it, I’m okay,” He stepped back. I scooped up a boot, then the other, and dragged them to the foot of my cot, slumping back down to shove them on.

Cooper returned to his side of the bunker, his hands a blur as he buttoned his uniform and pulled his cot into some semblance of order. The other guys, O’Malley and Robertson, were doing the same. I kept myself from throwing up, which was something, and got dressed, stumbling into line as Major Johansson strode into the bunker.

“Attention!” he yelled, or what seemed like yelling, “Robertson, knock that grin off your face,” he stood in front of us as my head pounded and my stomach twisted, somehow standing at attention like a statue. Just like everyone else. I’ve been well trained. I guess there’s that.

Major Johansson was only a few degrees shy of being the most typical commanding officer on record. The number of times he said “ass” was outnumbered only in how many times he clamped a cigar between his teeth and damned all Germans, patriotism seeping from every pore like garlic after a heavy Italian meal.

“The new Colonel’s on his way right now,” he announced, pacing in front of us, “That means no funny business. This is war—people die. Colonel Green was a damn fine solider but it was his day to die, life goes on.” Maybe he was nervous, it was hard to tell. He stood at the end of the line and squared his overly large shoulders.

God, I’m not ready for this. I can be a real idiot sometimes.

Barely two seconds later Johansson stiffened and we all turned our eyes to the ceiling and raised our arms in salute as a tall man tucked into the bunker. His pale face entered the golden lamp light, nose somewhat red, cheeks darkened from the chill of the early morning, the smell of rain following him from outside. My eyes were directed at the ceiling so I only heard the broken limping of his gate instead of saw it, then a rough voice said, “Colonel House reporting—Major,” he addressed and Johansson lowered his arm, “At ease everyone,” the new Colonel ordered and I threw my arms behind my back, allowing my eyes to shift to the side for a second to see him.

I don’t know what I was expecting. No, that’s wrong, I knew exactly what I was expecting. I’d been expecting some grumbling but proud-to-be-here Colonel that had been sitting on his ass for the last year, happy to be on the front-line fighting the good fight but not so happy to give up his three square meals a day and long, restful nights on a feather mattress. I wouldn’t have been surprised.

But Colonel House wasn’t like that. Not at all. I wasn’t the only one that thought so. I think we were all staring. The metals and rank were all there. The over whelming metallic smell of shell fragments and iron-rich dirt that characterized the air might as well have been from all the nods-to-Uncle-Sam on his chest. The prejudice against high-ranking individuals came from knowing that people hardly ever made it that far up, not the good ones anyway. Men fought for different things. When you fight for rank you end up with the recognition, you see that as the goal, and you get there, whatever way you can. Mostly through saving your own ass. We’d all been told war-hero stories and we’d all learned to doubt how true they really were. Not that I could tell, in that moment, what Colonel House had fought for.

I caught myself staring. If there had ever existed colour in the trenches, besides red, the kind of colour that stood out like flares in the grey and dismal shadows, it was this man’s eyes. I’d seen eyes like that before, knew someone with eyes like that before. But my head, fuzzy, uncooperative, painful, couldn’t remember. Long lashes hid them from view as he concentrated on stepping around to the front of the line, and I saw it was his right leg that he was favoring. More than favoring. He was dragging it under him. Maybe that’s why he was away from the front lines. Injury. Promotion. And being called back.

His face was gaunt and thin, scruffy with days old stubble, hair a mess of damp curls on top his head. His chin was raised in the kind of pride that didn’t reflect dominance or superiority, but blatant defiance to everyone and everything.

He paused and looked us over, his penetrative gaze scanning over us before he licked his lips and straightened his back, most of his weight on his good leg, raising his voice to speak to all of us, “Green got the easy way out of here—he’s headed home, unlike us—you should be happy for him,” he said, “I need a report from the Major and the head medic and then we can get back to waiting for the war, understood?”

Colonel House didn’t wait for a reply, just turned to the section of the bunker where Green had bunked and limped away. We all eased, exchanging glances.

Cooper frowned and mouthed “what the hell” at me as the Major followed the Colonel .

I inched closer to Cooper, Robertson and O’Malley doing the same. We must have looked like a bunch of lost kids; dirty, wet, pathetic, huddled nervously around each other.

“What do you think?” Cooper asked no one in particular, verbalizing what we all were thinking.

Robertson whistled lowly, “Anyone just get a shiver down their spine?”

“Meaning?” O’Malley asked, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“Meaning the new Colonel’s a ghoul.”

O’Malley’s brow knitted, “He did seem a bit . . . ”

“Yeah,” Robertson echoed, trailing off as well.

Cooper turned to me, speaking low, apart from the others, “What do you think his story is?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Well, you’ll find out,” he said, smiling wickedly then turning back to his cot and sitting down.

I did the same, waiting for Johansson to come back. When he did I watched as the Major jutted out his chin and cleared his throat roughly. He turned grey eyes on me and looked at me as he always did, like I was a kid that had just kicked over the milk pale and he had to clean it up, maybe this time with a little bit of pity,

“Nice guy,” he grumbled, then stalked off.

I gulped and straightened my uniform, biting back nervousness, blaming it on everyone else’s reaction. It’s amazing what being confined to a small space with the same people day after day will do to you. Paranoia is a big one. And I don’t think our social skills are exactly exercised on a regular basis either.

I took a few breaths, ignoring the pounding in my head, also trying to ignore the way everything had gone utterly silent. We didn’t know Colonel House. That doesn’t make him bad. We don’t know. I don’t know. I’d rather make my own conclusions.


	3. Concern

The trenches were basically rabbit holes. Rank was important but the only way to tell one mud-covered person from another mud-covered person was by the rusty metal at their collar or on their chest, and even then, there were few benefits to any of it once you realized we’ll all be climbing the same damn latter when the whistle is blown. There was a small corner dug out of the main-bunker where Cooper, Robertson, and O’Malley slept, the roof supported by hastily constructed rafters, where the highest-ranking officer lived. That’s where I was headed now. I stepped into his “quarters” and saluted, “Chief Medic Sergeant James Wilson, reporting as ordered, sir,” I announced.

“At ease,” the Colonel said from where he was seated at a small wooden table covered in maps and loose pieces of paper. I realized they were left over from Green. Just where he left them. An old tin cup, the old Colonel’s cup, was still sitting out. I lowered my arm and waited.

The new Colonel took a slow breath and shifted on his chair, his right leg stuck straight out in front of him. I got the impression he’d come a long way. Probably had. It’s not exactly an easy trip out here. He watched me intently. I might have appeared brave, staring back at him, but mostly I was just concentrating on not falling over. Somehow I was keeping it together as my head spun in wide ovals, gritting my teeth to keep from getting sick.

He looked away, reaching into the front pocket of his tunic to pull out a silver case which he opened and took a cigarette from.

“Sit down, Sergeant,” he said through the cigarette, eyes flickering up to mine briefly before he took out a match and struck it on the table.

I did so, glad to, on the edge of his cot.

“So, what’s the matter with you?” he asked finally, shaking out the flame of the match after lighting his cigarette, smoke spiraling slowly around his head.

“Sir?” I asked, meeting his eyes.

His brow knitted, eyes narrowing, then said with quiet certainty, “You’re hung-over.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, eyes lowering to my hands in my lap. Great, I thought, what a good way to make a first impression. Obviously, it was obvious. True, we didn’t get a lot of sun in the trenches, not usually, so of course I was pale. And though boredom reigned we never really got enough sleep, thus the bloodshot eyes. And we all had nightmares, that explains the perspiration. Or, I thought, I’d drank a whole bottle of scotch last night.

“Don’t be,” he grumbled, taking a slow drag then tapping the ash from the tip of his cigarette.

“I’m not usually much of a drinker, sir,” I explained. And I wasn’t. Not that he knew that. He might be thinking this trench has a drunk for a medic for all I know.

His bright eyes took on an amused expression for a moment as he raised a hand wearily to his forehead, “At least I’m not the only one they dragged from a stupor.”

Another surprise, “I didn’t think people dragged Colonels anywhere, sir.”

“Among other things,” he responded more clearly, snapping his hand from his temple, “Which are confidential.”

“As a medical officer I do have higher clearance than the others, sir.”

He considered that, and me, “You’re older than the others.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Drop out of school?”

“No, sir—my brother was over here. I’d stayed at home to take care of our parents, then he disappeared and I . . . ” I trailed off slightly. It had been over a year. Still no word. I didn’t want to talk about David, though.

“Came to find him?” he finished for me.

“I owed it to him,” I said instead, a little annoyed that he’d make that kind of presumption.

“Sure, that makes sense,” Colonel House said, “Your parents will know what it’s like to lose two sons.”

I said nothing. Couldn’t say anything to that.

His eyes turned away, almost distracted, distant, then, as if repressing a sigh he licked his lips and said, “You’re a medic. I have a gimp leg. If I need anything from you I’ll ask, otherwise don’t mention it to anyone.”

“People know you limp, sir.”

“I don’t care if they see me limp, I just don’t want them to know how much it hurts,” he swallowed, glancing once at me then back down to his cigarette, flicking ash away, “You’re dismissed, Sergeant.”

I stood, then paused, “Sir?” my throat tightened, “About the battle last week.”

“What about it?” he asked, looking up from the table.

“Can I ask how much ground we gained, sir?”

“Fifty meters.”

50 meters. 150 feet. We’d only gained 150 feet.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and left.


	4. Sweetness

The following Tuesday was when the pineapples arrived. Actual pineapples. The fruit. Not the kind that explodes. Three crates of them. Seemingly out of no where. We’d woken up in the morning, questioned the night-guard, who knew nothing about it, and they were just there.

They’d opened one crate to extract the prickly fruit for inspection. We were now all crowded around them, scenting the unfamiliar smell, like the tropics, standing on our tiptoes and shouldering our rifles to get a better view.

“Maybe the German’s sent them!” Robertson suggested.

“Yeah right, Robertson,” O’Malley droned, rolling his eyes behind the thick lenses of his glasses, “The German’s snuck  _ undetected _ across No Man’s Land carrying three boxes of pineapples,  _ crawled _ down into our trenches,  _ left _ them here, and  _ crawled _ back, going totally unnoticed by everyone and anyone.”

“Maybe they did! Stuck them full of poison. They’re a clever bunch of bastards!”

“It’s not clever to poison pineapples, you moron, it's just plain crazy.”

“It’s  _ not _ though! Who would suspect a pineapple?” Robertson turned to the Colonel, breathless, “I don’t think we should eat them, sir—they could be lethal, sir.”

Colonel House had moved to the back of the crowd, curious as everyone else, “Anyone want an easy way out of here?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Sir?” O’Malley asked.

“Whoever tests the pineapples, and they  _ are _ poisoned, will probably get to spend a few weeks in a field hospital for it—if you don’t die instantly that is.”

“So you think they are, sir? Poisoned, I mean, sir—it’s true isn’t it!”

“Damn right, it’s true, I saw the same thing in North Africa—I lost one of my best men to a poisoned guava fruit.”

“That’s terrible, sir!”

“It was a noble way to go,” he said, lowering his eyes in respect for the dead, as I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing, “Tasty too. I don’t think he regretted it at all.” His eyes turned to mine and he smiled. I lowered my hand and smiled back, shifting my eyes to Robertson.

“So,” House said, “Do you love your country or not?”

“Of course, sir,” Robertson barked out, eyes wavering slightly as he looked over at the crates.

House nodded solemnly. I barely stifled a choked laugh.

“Alright, sir,” Robertson breathed, “Okay,” he looked back to the crate, “I’ll do it, sir.”

House turned away from them, dragging his right leg with his left leg to stand to the side with me. I narrowed my eyes, hands on my hips, “That’s a pretty low blow, don’t you think, sir?” I said, “Making him question his love for his country unless he tests a potentially dangerous pineapple for poison.”

“I thought it was poetic.”

“They’re printing out the recruitment posters now.”

“I know I’d sign up again if I could.”

He smiled a small, close lipped smile, eyes lingering over mine for several seconds, which then turned into several more seconds, after which he looked away, leaving their imprint on my mind. He ordered me to watch over Robertson then disappeared, like he always did. I realized I was still smiling ten minutes later, too distracted to really care if they were German pineapples or not.

>>>>>>>>>

I came off my guard and shuffled into the bunker, swinging my gun around from my shoulder then leaned it against my cot, taking a long breath that turned into a sigh. The thing about guard duty, besides it being really boring, is that it gives you time to think simply because there’s nothing else to do. And that wasn’t good here. Without distractions there’s no way of keeping your mind off things. Things like the layer of dirt and grim that seemed to permanently cover my skin, the grease in my unwashed hair, the itch of bugs that we all had but could do nothing about, an everlasting dampness that soaked its way into every layer of clothing—back home I definitely took baths for granted. I’m telling you, take twenty baths a day, more even, you’ll miss them when they’re not there.

And I thought about Tim. I’ve been thinking about him a lot. I’m having a hard time getting him out of my head actually. And it’s never any of the good things. Only the bad things. I wish I could remember the beautiful times but all I can remember now is his death. All I can see, over and over again in my head is his blue, terrified eyes staring up into mine, all I can hear is his wet, gasping last breath, feel his blood spray my face—the scene played out over and over in my head. I wish I could get rid of it. I wish I could just have him back. I wish I could see him again, just for a few minutes. I didn’t get to say goodbye. If I could talk to him, somehow, I could tell him all the things I was afraid to when he was alive. I’d tell him that I was joking when I’d told him I got seasick. That I’d never been to Michigan and maybe, maybe, we could have some kind of life up there. 

Cooper was on his bunk, back against the wall, one leg stuck out in front of him, the other bent at the knee, reading something, a letter maybe. Robertson had taken over guard. He’d survived the pineapple. O’Malley was sleeping.

Cooper glanced up at me when I came in, the piece of paper crinkling as he let it drop to his lap, “Colonel’s asking for you.”

“Huh?” I asked tiredly, stifling a yawn.

“Colonel. Asking for you,” he said distractedly, eyes back on his letter.

I stretched briefly, sore, “I agree Robertson,” I said, “Guy’s like a ghost.”

“Hey, that’s insubordination, soldier,” Cooper grumbled.

“What more could they do to me?”

“They’d think of something.”

“Dime a dozen.”

He laughed as I ducked under the rafters to see what the Colonel wanted.

I entered the Colonel’s bunker.

The light of the lamp flickered. A draft from somewhere was forcing the flame down to a tiny spark, the small sound and the incessant dripping from nowhere and everywhere resonating from the dirt walls after my footsteps had died out.

Colonel House was laying on his cot, long legs stretched out in front of him, arms crossed behind his head. It looked like a picture. The weary, wounded soldier half-asleep on his cot in the trenches. Maybe it would be a painting if Norman Rockwell visited the trenches. Which I doubted he would. We needed him to paint what wasn’t here, what could be.

“Robertson didn’t die, sir,” I said, sliding my hands into my pockets. I pulled absently at a loose thread inside the fabric, smiling slightly, “As ordered I watched him for over an hour and he was perfectly fine.”

“Good news,” he said, un-crossing his arms from behind his head.

I smiled, “Is it, sir?”

He grinned, then said, “Robertson posed for the  _ Stars and Stripes _ underwear catalog.”

“Probably,” I agreed.

I realized I hadn’t said sir. But it didn’t seem wrong somehow. There was something about Colonel House. More than his casual poses, more than the way his eyes were a million miles away from here, that made me not be afraid of him. Even when everyone else seemed to be. Regulations didn’t seem to matter. They should have. I’m just a Sergeant. Maybe they didn’t matter to him. Or maybe it was only for me.

I leaned against the doorframe, “Something you wanted to see me about?” I asked.

He leaned his head back, jaw-bone prominent in the dim light, stomach rising with a deep breath, “I was going over the recently dead today,” he tilted his head forward, “And a name came up,” he paused, “Cooper said you know him.”

My stomach clenched but I didn’t flinch, blinking patiently, waiting for him to finish.

“Timothy Larson.”

At the name I looked down, afraid I’d give something away. We were just friends. Everyone had to believe that. For my safety.

“I knew him, sir,” I confirmed.

His hand touched his thigh, an absent, unconscious gesture, “I thought as much.”

I waited in silence.

“Cooper told me you were close.”

“Cooper likes to tell stories, sir,” I said, forcing nonchalance. Don’t ask anything more, don’t ask any more.

One morning. God, I’d almost forgotten, we’d been so stupid, more stupid than we could blame on our age or getting hit over the head too many times during basic training, a late autumn storm had rolled in while most of us slept. A clap of thunder had woken me from a light sleep. It’d woken Tim up too. God we were stupid. Robertson had gone to hospital for an infection in his feet and Cooper and O’Malley had both been on guard that night. We still weren’t supposed to have fallen asleep though. Cooper had come bounding back into the bunker faster than we had time to react. I’d yanked my arm from around Tim's shoulder as fast as I could and Tim fell to the floor with a gasp but it’d been too late. Cooper had seen us. He’d never said anything about it. I didn’t think he would. He’s not that kind of guy.

“True stories?” House asked after a moment.

I unclenched my jaw, sliding a smile that might have looked effortless but wasn’t across my lips, my hands still casually in my pockets, “He’s from a small town, sir.”

He watched me then, eyes strikingly blue, and their once liquid quality slowly froze into stone as I watched. He looked away then nodded.

“Is that . . . all you wanted to see me about, sir?” I asked hesitantly.

“What else would there be?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re dismissed then, Sergeant.”

I left, going back to my cot, to Cooper still reading his letter, to O’Malley still snoring, and a strange, indescribable feeling in the pit of my stomach. I glanced up at Cooper once I’d sat down on my cot.

Cooper glanced up from the crumpled letter, worn from being read a million times, pausing before saying, “What he’d want?”

“Just to talk I guess,” I reached down to my boots, tugging the thick laces loose.

“You’re about the only person he does talk to,” Cooper laughed somewhat. He stretched out, crossing his ankles, slouching with his back against the wall.

“I have  _ no _ idea why,” I admitted, pulling one boot off. After a long day there’s nothing like taking your boots off.

“People confide in their medical officers—it’s kinda part of your job.”

“So I’m a shrink, too?”

He laughed, somewhat curly, light-brown hair tangled across his head like a thistle.

I untied the second boot and pulled it off, placing them at the end of my cot, then tugged off my socks. I’ll have to clean them in the morning. Not that it matters really. Biting at my lower lip I took a breath, “He asked about Tim.”

“Yeah?” Cooper responded, then hesitantly asked, “What about him?”

I closed my eyes, shaking my head slightly, “Apparently you mentioned I was close to him,” I opened my eyes, socks in hand, reaching to hang them over the rod at the end of my cot, “I dunno—I don’t know why he’d care about him.”

Cooper was silent for a few seconds. “I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know,” I said quickly, then sighed, placing a hand over my eyes, “I’m just . . . a little tired.”

I couldn’t see him but I knew he was concerned, but he wouldn’t really say anything more. He was good at just being there, not asking too many questions, not being critical or judgmental. Apparently also good at keeping his mouth shut about seeing you in bed with a fellow soldier. I’m thankful for that. I wish I could tell him but you don’t talk about that kind of thing. Even indirectly. It’s dangerous. I knew Cooper knew about us, about me, and really it was just luck that he was the kind of guy he was—if it had been anyone else . . . things would have been different.

I laid back and closed my eyes. Cooper did the same. The pineapple had been good today. With my eyes closed I could still taste it on my tongue. Colonel House had contacted headquarters to ask about it. We might get an answer as to where it came from in a year or two. I’m not complaining. We shouldn’t even have told headquarters about it. The medic in me identified all the important nutrients that pineapples had, that would be good for the men. Another part of me, the part that did no harm with my eyes closed, drifting off to sleep, remembered House taking a huge bite of pineapple, eyes closed in bliss, the juice dripping down his chin, tongue slipping from between his lips to lap at the excess. Eventually I fell asleep, the phantom smell of pineapples on each breath.


	5. Heat

Pineapples were for breakfast. That day and the next day. And the day after that.

I don’t know if you know this but there  _ is _ such a thing as too much pineapple.

By week two of nothing but pineapples we were reaching our limit. People started getting this look of dread in their eyes about an hour before every meal and everything became quiet when the never-ending supply of pineapple proved yet again to be never ending. It was that or they’d rot. I’d almost rather they did. I wish there was a way to put them in jars or dry them but I’d never learned. We didn’t have the means anyway. O’Malley had a Grandma that made raspberry jam but that was about it. There were serious discussions about finding a way to call and ask her.

I was outside the bunker, leaning on the sandbags that served as a wall, the sun actually out and shining in that exact spot. And I was eating a piece of pineapple. I’d decided to bite the bullet on this thing—the faster we eat it, the sooner it’ll be gone—sacrificial, I know, but it has to be done. 

I wiped at a dribble of juice that had dripped down my chin and sucked at the excess juice, locking my lips around the edge of the sweet golden fruit. My wet fingers were quickly drying in the sun, sticking together, making it hard to turn the pages of the book I was reading.

It was an old copy of “Sir Gawian and the Green Knight”. Really it was more poetry than anything else. It’d been Tim’s. He’s wanted me to read it. I’d groaned and sighed and taken it anyway. Arthurian literature has always seemed so un-relatable to me—now especially, but even before the war it’d seemed like all the stories about Arthur and the Round Table were based on ideals and standards that hadn’t been recognized iren ages. And probably wouldn’t ever be again. Everyone had thought the twentieth century would be different. Some difference.

I was bored enough, and idle enough, that I barely reacted when Colonel House came out of the doorway, grumbling to himself, reading over the same line for probably the hundredth time.

_ Whether fate be foul or fair, Why falter I or fear? What should man do but dare? _

He came to stand next to me, threw an ankle over the other, and aggressively took a cigarette out, still grumbling. Next, a match which he struck violently against a wooden plank, lit the tip of his cigarette, then took a vicious inhale all in a barely two second time frame.

I stopped reading. Lowered the book. Looked at him. He took a long drag from his cigarette, the end flaring orange, and held the smoke behind clenched teeth until it trailed out of his nose.

“Problem?” I asked innocently.

“Just got a call from headquarters.”

“Nice of them.”

“Those bastards!”

“What did they say?” I asked steadily, book resting on my thigh.

He raised the cigarette to his lips and drew in another lungful, the end all ash, “I’m not getting reassigned,” he said sternly, his face looking pale in the shaft of sunlight. He shook his head and smoked, looking like someone who’d just heard the snap of his life-raft’s rope from the boat.

“I thought this was only temporary for you.”

“It _was_ ,” he said sharply, “Now they want me to stay.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea,” he said, turning his blue eyes up to the strip of sky above us.

“Why’d they assign you here in the first place?”

“Something to do with your last Colonel getting his guts blown out,” he shrugged.

I winced slightly at the brutal honesty, “But why you?”

“Because I was available,” he said flatly, then, “Because this is one of the most distant, horrible trenches in the war and they thought the only possible way to make it better would be to put a gimp with barely two legs in command,” he flicked ash from the end of his cigarette and scowled, “At least here I can’t screw up anymore.”

“Had you before?” I asked hesitantly.

“You want to know anything, consult the trench rumor mill, I’m sure there’s a lot about me—the one about me and the Archduke isn’t true, though,” he threw the end of his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out, immediately looking regretful.

I thought he’d leave but he didn’t. He folded his arms over his chest and just stood there next to me, fuming. After a moment he glanced over at me. Glared. Arms dropped.

“What?” he demanded, one hand easing down his thigh to rub at it in an annoyed way.

“Nothing,” I turned back to my book. I wasn’t going to do anything with the information he’d given me. He hadn’t given me anything. The past was the past. I knew that, we all knew that. I popped the last of the pineapple in my mouth and wiped my hands on my trousers, the sweet taste almost numb on my tongue, sun warm on my face. And as far as him being stuck here, well, that’s war for you. So many people, so few promotions. Sympathy wasn’t absent, it was just muted. And there _was_ a rumor mill. Not that I encouraged it.

“What are you reading?” he asked, blatantly changing the subject.

I laughed weakly, “You mean, what am I _trying_ to read?”

“Been there,” he said with mock sympathy, “I didn’t learn to read until I was fourteen.”

“The wonder of our well trained troops.”

“Still working on my first chapter book.”

“The alphabet can be daunting.”

“Terrifying.”

I laughed and held the book out so he could see the front cover, announcing in a loud, clear voice, “Sir Gawian and the Green Knight,” the cover was a black and white, old fashioned illustration, except for the knight who was bright green, “Guy-ian, Gway-ne,” I stumbled over the pronunciation, “Gu-iay-in?”

“Sure,” House droned, “Be American—mispronounce everything.”

“Hey!” I defended myself, “It’s an odd name.”

“Why can’t everyone be named James and Timothy?” he asked sarcastically.

I scoffed, ignoring his usage of those exact names, “You’ve read it?”

“Yep—I’m a very well read soldier—the brain is a muscle too you know.”

“Yeah right.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“None of us are well read—otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

“Whoever  _ gave _ you that book was well read.”

“He wasn’t either—people own books, that doesn’t mean—wait . . . how’d you know someone gave it to me?”

“Besides the fact that you just confirmed it for me? The name printed on the first page is a give away,” he reached to flip the front cover open, revealing a lightly scrawled “Timothy Larson” and looked up at me with a triumphant, definitely smug expression.

“He lent it to me.”

“Permanently, now that he’s dead.”

“Thanks for being sensitive.”

“You’re welcome.”

“He loved this kind of stuff,” I said, looking at the book again.

“Knights in shining armor are a difficult myth to resist,” House said. I looked at him. “That and the goodness of mankind, free lunches, and love at first sight.”

“Now that’s taking it too far,” I said, “Nothing in this world will ever dull my joy of a free sandwich.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and the sunlight flickered over his face as he looked at me. He didn’t look nearly as gruff in the sun. But that’s just the unusual nice day talking. We don’t get enough sun here, makes us all act strange. The Colonel was wearing the same rumpled uniform, collar twisted and ripped near the corner. Same rusty rank insignia. Part of my mind went to my front left breast pocket where I kept Tim’s metal, the one I’d torn from his uniform.

House’s eyes narrowed slightly, chin raised, and before I could react he reached forward and brushed his thumb over the corner of my mouth. I froze, heart skipping once in my chest, the rough pad of his thumb trialing lightly over my cheek before he un-leaned himself, “Pineapple,” he explained roughly, then limped heavily back inside.

>>>>>>>

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m the medic, someone called me,” I said from the doorway. When it was nighttime in the trenches everything seemed to echo more. The Colonel’s cheerless question echoed hollowly off the dirt walls, somehow making the room seem larger than it was, his voice unsteady and shaky with pain. I’d been woken up by the night-guard, dragged out of bed, and told the Colonel needed medical attention. My shirt was half-unbuttoned, hair a mess, boot-laces untied. I didn’t immediately move into the room, hanging on the outside of the lamp-light instead like a person would stay at least a few meters away from a caged animal.

He was sitting on his cot, both hands clamped to his thigh. The red around his eyes, flickering in and out of notice in the dim light, suggested tears but I couldn’t see any on his cheeks. At my words, his head rolled back slightly and his eyes closed, the tip of his tongue wetting his dry lips before he took a shaking breath and said, “Don’t need you.”

“Yes,” I said, irritated, tired, “You do,” I strode inside the room, my medical bag only heavy in my hand until I set it on the floor and knelt by his cot. I heard him sigh, the sound shuddering through his chest, eyes closing as he swore under his breath.

He must have figured he had no choice. When you get woken up in the middle of the night by a guard saying that your commanding officer looks like he’s near death you have an obligation to help. And he needed help. Regardless of who he was, whatever rank, whether we’d shared pieces of pineapples together or not, it was my job. I took away pain. To the best of my ability. I did what I could. I wanted to help him. I found that kneeling here, in front of him, seeing him like this, was hurting me almost as much as he was. The pain hit me in waves, making it hard to breathe; I  _ couldn’t _ just watch. I  _ had _ to do something.

House’s eyes fluttered half-way open, shifting to look at me where I was kneeling next to him. They were barely focused, bloodshot and in as much time as it took him to convey his reproach for me, or for the situation, he shut them again.

“How long has the pain been this bad?” I asked quietly, observing the sheen of sweat over his pale face. When he didn’t answer I persisted, “Let me take a look,” I reached to touch his arm and he jerked away, making me freeze. He was breathing faster. “I have to look at it, it could be getting worse—”

“It’s not,” he interrupted, pressing the heel of his one of his hands against his forehead, eyes squeezed shut, “It was like this a month ago, a year ago—it’s not getting any  _ better _ , it’s not getting any  _ worse _ . You’re wasting your time.”

“Maybe there’s something I can do.”

“Want to amputate it for me?” he asked sharply, looking up at me. I didn’t react, just stared back at him. He was trying to scare me away. It’s going to take more than that, I thought. I’ve amputated more limbs than I can count. You have to stop an infection before it starts. You can’t risk it. You have to stop it before it gets out of hand. Which begged the question why someone left this leg on him.

When I didn’t stand up and leave he glared viciously at me but for a few moments then lowered his eyes, burning through his anger like kindling on a large flame, “I’ll be fine, Wilson, leave me alone.”

This was going to be harder than I’d thought. Or, cliché aside, this was going to be  _ just _ as hard as I’d thought.

I persisted, “You should at least have it elevated.”

He huffed, raising both his eyebrows as both of his hands returned to his thigh, “I’m sure that’ll do just the trick.”

“Who’s the doctor here?” I questioned hotly.

“Neither of us.”

“You think this is the worst I’ve seen?” I asked significantly, “This is nothing, believe me—lie back,” I ordered.

“Wilson . . . ” he groaned in protest.

“Just lie back, I need to have a look at it,” I repeated, sitting back somewhat on my heels, then added, “Please.”

House parted his lips, breathing, a muscle in his face twitched, and his jaw shifted before he met my eyes. Trust me? I asked with my eyes.

He said nothing. For a second I thought I’d run out of options unless I wanted to bodily force him to lie down, something I’d rather not have to resort to. The thought was there though—in my mind his back hit the mattress and my hands were on his shoulders. I almost physically shook my head, forcing the mental image away, frustrated at myself for thinking it. But I guess he decided to bow to whatever authority I have because he did what I asked.

Without a word he started to unbutton his tunic. His long fingers moved silently over the brass buttons in total silence, slow like even that amount of movement was hurting him. I watched every button fall loose from the thick wool. The rhythm of his breath matched each glint of metal disappearing under heavy wool. After the last one he stopped. My eyes lifted, maybe just then realizing that I’d been staring. My eyes locked to his. He licked his lips. I was scared to blink. Movement, and he was shouldering his tunic off. 

With effort he unfastened his trousers and shifted on the cot he could take my forearm for balance and pull them down. He lifted his right leg out, shaking, the metal of the bed creaking in protest as he sat back down. He picked his right leg up as if it were dead, moving so he could lean his back against the dirt wall behind him.

“How long have you had it?” I asked, leaning forward on my knees so I could place a tentative hand on his thigh.

“It’s been close to two years,” he said quietly as I examined the line of his bone, lowering my hands down to his knee, slowly wrapping my fingers underneath then lifting, “Can you bend your knee?” He almost did. There was limited mobility to his whole leg, bending it was agony.

“What happened?” I asked, lowering his leg back to the mattress carefully.

“I was stupid,” he answered. Just above the hem of his briefs I could see his stomach rising and falling rapidly, shirt damp with sweat.

“You were  _ injured _ ,” I said in his defense, moving down his calve, “Toes alright?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “No nerve damage. Just muscle.”

“I can’t believe you could even  _ keep _ it—the amount of tissue lost should have been enough to have it amputated,” I explained, though he must have heard it before. God, how could he have lived through this? I’ve seen men die from an infection from a splinter. His thigh was . . . there was muscle but otherwise it was only half there. 

My hands moved back up past his knee. I could at least give it a massage. It might help. As I kneaded the muscle I talked to him, and myself, trying to distract myself, something to fill the silence, “Swelling is probably strain from overuse, the pain’s probably a result of spasms in the remaining muscle,” I spread my fingers, easing them firmly around to the outside of his leg. Silent again. He was breathing harder. I found my voice, “Think of it as a machine that’s lost part of its components, everything else has to work harder but to make it work a few wires had to be crossed. What’s left of your muscles has learned to work as they are, but it’s not good for them.”

I let my hands pick up speed, rubbing slowly and steadily, using the strength of my thumbs and the weight of my palms to smooth the shattered surface. I thought he’d protest, I thought he’d kick me out. He didn’t. Maybe it helped. After a few minutes of the massage he seemed to relax. My fingers slowed.

I heard his breathing, deep and rhythmic, then looked up to his face to see his eyes closed, head back. I gulped, throat tight.

When my fingers moved again, further upward to the part of the muscle that was still intact, he made a small choking sound. My heart was beating fast. Too fast. I blinked my unfocused eyes and saw the muscles of his stomach tense under his shirt. My hands didn’t stop, instead I used the weight of my whole upper body to hold down the reflexive bucking of his legs and hips as I massaged the length of his leg, fingertips dipping around and into the inside of his thigh. His breath was coming in hurried, heavy gasps now, in rhythm to his hips movements. A slow, hard ache had started in my groin. I could feel my cock straining against the inside of my trousers and I tried to ignore it.

I stopped breathing when his legs spread just a fraction of an inch further apart and beneath the thin fabric of his briefs I could see the outline of his hardening cock. I’m a medic. He’s a patient. I’m giving him a massage for his leg. That’s it. There’s no reason for it to be anything else. Worse, he’s my commanding officer. God, what am I doing? I’m not thinking! I have to get outta here. 

But I didn’t move. I don’t know what's happening. If I was reading this all wrong. Didn’t know and part of me didn’t care. I decided to make the worst mistake of the war and not leave while I still could. 

Instead I found my hand sliding up to where his leg met his hips, the heat of his skin increasing around the throb of his artery. Shaking fingertips met the hot, damp fabric, feeling the pulsing hardness underneath. Didn’t dare look at his face. God stop, Wilson. My eyes closed as his hips rose into my hand, pressing his hard cock into my palm. He groaned at the contact, a deep, rich sound. Oh god. 

Suddenly his hand flew to mine and he was sitting up. The grip was tight on my hand, too tight, cutting off circulation to my fingers. For the first time since he called me in here his eyes didn’t leave mine, he swallowed, blinking several times, the seconds passing like centuries. My eyes flickered nervously down to his hand on mine, licked my lips. It hurt. Looked back up to him, searching his eyes, my own breath labored. What is he doing? God, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—silently I tried to convey the mistake, the apology, but his hand still clutched mine, my fingers going numb.

Then he kissed me. The wet warmth of his mouth met mine so suddenly it knocked the wind out of me. One of his hands reached roughly behind my head to drag me closer, fingers tangled in my snarled hair. His tongue parted my lips, our harsh breath mingling in the dark, hands gripping, pulling, tearing at each other’s clothes.

I scrambled to sit up on the bed, getting one leg under me, my hand fumbling, hearing him groan in frustration. Finally they opened, I was shaking with the suddenness, the intensity of reaching for his erect cock. He almost cried out, the sound turning into a long moan that he stifled with his palm, eyes closed. With my thumb I spread the bead of precum around the bulging head of his cock and slid the slickness down the quivering length. I wrapped my fingers around him, slowly testing the feel of his girth sliding in and out of my palm. Increased my pace, pumping his cock through my fist, his hips rising with each stroke. Another wet kiss, I can’t help moaning, my cock throbbing. The cot creaked and squeaked in protest as I pushed House back up against the wall. He’s unbuckled my belt and clumsily extracted my weeping cock, spitting into his palm before taking me roughly into his own hand, mirroring my movements, making me hiss and moan.

Heated breaths were stifled in each other's shoulders. Jerking, messy, no soft, tender movements, just saliva and pre-cum, not even enough time to build up a sweat. It was all House—smells, touch, sounds, pressed tightly into him, both our hearts like machine gun fire in my ears. He’s strong and urgent, and desperate and I can feel his cock start to pulse as my balls tighten. It’s an awkward position, making me shake, almost losing my footing, all but falling into him as his breaths quicken in a gasping  _ yes, yes, yes _ . He shudders and jerks, letting out a loud moan, back arching as hot cum spills over my hand. He traps my mouth in a breathless kiss, squeezing and pumping me helplessly to my own orgasm. My face is forced into his shoulder as I bite my lip, managing to keep myself from making so much as a tight grunt as waves of pleasure and release wash rip through me.

We stay like that, hands not leaving each other, stealing every sensation we can until we gasp painfully and let go. He shifts and I fall next to him. Oh shit. My cum is all over his shirt. His is on mine and all over my hand.

Noiselessly he reached for a towel hanging near the front of his cot. He wipes it over his shirt and his hand, then passed it to me. I took it. Cleaned myself off the best I could.

Behind me and to my right I heard his rough voice, “You know the routine, Sergeant.”

I got to my feet and stood up jerkily, turned to the side enough to glance once at him with a dazed nod. I fixed my trousers and that was that.

I left. I made it back to my cot, in shock. Sitting down, the wetness over my shirt was cool and obvious. A quick glance upward told me Cooper was asleep. I wiped my hand across my mouth. Damn it. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to calm myself, unexplained anger tight in my throat, and kicked my boots off. I settled down into my mattress, pulling my blanket up, eyes still wide open. My hand went to my breast pocket. I jerked. It wasn’t there. I patted it more firmly and sat up. Tim’s medal. I’d lost it.

That thought should have kept me up. That should have been what kept me from sleeping even a minute until my morning guard-shift. But it wasn’t.

It was House. Colonel House.

I closed my eyes, his scent still strong all over me, wrapping my blanket, and his smell, tighter around my shoulders. It’d be morning soon.


	6. Memories

I’m on my knees in the Colonel’s quarters.

There’s no other way. The faster I get this done the better. No need to dwell on it, make it big deal—I just need it. I need this. Just get the job done and move on—that’s how I like to operate. If you have to do something, even if it’s unpleasant, you just have to grit your teeth and get it over with. Once it’s done it’s the past. Strictly the past. Memories fade. They always do.

Which is why I’m here.

Tim’s rank insignia. It’s here somewhere. It’s the last place I had it. I think. I must have lost it last night. Last morning. Whatever time it had been. But then what does time matter here? You lose your head yesterday. Tomorrow you died. Which . . . sounds crazy. Great. I don’t have time to be mixing up tenses, I have to find the damn metal. It’s important. Very important. Right? Right.

I can’t believe I lost it. It’s the _only_ thing I have of his and I _lost_ it. The nature of memories assures they all have an expiration date. Sure, you could be ninety years old remembering what kind of cake you had for your sixth birthday but it doesn’t mean the memory’s remained static—it’s like pulling out a slip of paper over and over, or heating and reheating a cup of coffee, it loses quality every time. You can’t just depend on memory. Plus there’s no guarantee I’ll be living till I’m ninety either. If I do live through the war, someday back at home on American soil working in some quiet, echo filled hospital, I might remember some good times, pause over some boring prescription for antacids, but I’ll mostly just remember the bad times. I’ll remember death, no specific death—just death.

I don’t want that to happen. I need the metal so that I can remember him. I need to remember him. The metal had lasted longer than he had—it’ll last longer than me.

To say I felt guilty about last night, last morning, would only be scraping the surface of what was eating away at me right now. I felt guilty. I felt sick and dirty and I felt like if I could scrub my mind clean with a steel-wool brush I’d scrape away all that had happened. All I was feeling. Feeling happy again was wrong. Call me old fashioned, call me loyal, call me romantic, but mourning over someone should last at least a month. And the coping part of it shouldn’t entail jerking your commanding officer off in the middle of the night then shuffling back to bed.

It’s just a coincidence. I meet the Colonel right after Tim gets killed. It’s like pieces on a playing board. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it. I’m not supposed to feel this way—it’s not normal. I’m not supposed to feel this way for anyone but the nice girl that works at the soda shop and gives me an extra cherry in my soda—this isn’t love, it can’t be love. Part of me knows that what I had with Tim wasn’t love. It’s not possible for someone like me. But another part, the part that knows that I could be dead tomorrow, that my parents could get a telegram with my name filling in the blank, that I’ll probably never leave France, I’ll never leave this trench, can’t let this go. 

_“No way,” the Corporal said in a harsh whisper, breath stirring the dirt on the ground where we were laying hidden on a small hill overlooking a stretch of meadow._

_“But he’s still alive!” I shot back in the same loud whisper, pushing my helmet up from where it’d slipped down my forehead, threads of wet hair sticking to my brow._

_“Yeah, with a pistol in his jacket, finger on the trigger!” he retorted, blue eyes wide and shaking in his pale dirty face. He threw a quick glance over each shoulder, ducking lower to the ground. We were in enemy territory. Which meant we weren’t safe. There could be Germans hiding behind every tree, waiting to shoot us without a second thought. We’d never get back to our unit. We’d never even be found. And if they didn’t kill us we’d be kept alive as prisoners. I forcefully pushed away both thoughts. This isn’t the time for that kind of thing. It’s funny how desperate situations are never time for over-thinking. How is less thinking a better thing?_

_ We’d stumbled across a fallen German soldier. Almost literally. There was no way of knowing if the surrounding area was clear or not. We’d been waiting here, watching—nothing. I strained my ears to listen but there was nothing. Just the breeze blowing through the trees. Birds chirping. But Germans never come back for their fallen comrades, right? That’s what they say. So if we didn’t help him he’d die. I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m not a soldier. Well, yeah I am, but I guess I wasn’t installed with the right kind of instincts. Corporal Larson is though. He wants to just let the man die. He doesn’t want to risk it. I have to though. I have to help him. _

_Anyway, I outranked Corporal Larson. Just because we were by ourselves, separated, trying to get back after the last battle, didn’t mean all regulations went out the window. I don’t have to answer to him. He might be fine with watching someone suffer but I’m not._

_ I’ve spent the last five days listening to him complain, I’m tired of it. He seems to think he knows everything about everything. Which isn’t true. There is a lot I know that he doesn’t. A lot. If all there is to learn in life can be learned in a small town in Michigan then its population wouldn’t be barely two hundred fishermen. _

_ “He’s not going to shoot me,” I said, glaring at Larson, getting my knees under me, dragging my bag from my back, “He’s wounded! The last thing he’s going to do is shoot someone trying to help him!” Larson was shaking his head at me, “Probably the only things on his mind right now are his nice German girlfriend he never got to say goodbye to or wishing he could see his mom one last time!” _

_“Wounded animals kill people, Wilson!” he nearly shouted, “It happens all the time!”_

_“You’re a fisherman! Run across a lot of violent wounded fish, do you?”_

_“I had an uncle who got impaled by a deer he’d shot. It’d been shot three times and still managed to almost kill him!”_

_I rolled my eyes, “I’m going,” I started to get up, planting a boot firmly in the soil under me. Larson shot his hand out and caught my arm, forcing me back to the ground. The movement scared a few birds from the tree we were under, causing them to flit wildly across the open sky in a rush of wings._

_He was going to physically keep me from going? I met his eyes, ready to hit him if I had to. He returned the gaze for a heated moment then looked away, eyes blurry. He blinked like he was clearing his head then he looked back to me. There’s a long pause before he says anything else, breathing harshly through his nose, mouth clamped shut like he couldn’t speak. He licked his lips, eyes locked with mine, and said, “If he kills you I’ll be all alone,” his voice was shaking, face inches from mine, knuckles white where he was grasping my arm._

_ I swallowed. Glanced at this hand locked onto my arm. Met his eyes. Shocked. “No you won’t,” I said to Larson, trying to be calm, reassuring. His hand didn’t relax on my arm, I tried again, “I’m gonna go out there, see if he’s okay, and I’ll be right back. I promise.” _

_A few more seconds of eye contact, his eyes emptying of anger slowly, expression fading from his face like a shadow, then he lowered his eyes. Fingers relaxed their grip. He set his face, pressed his lips together and lifted his hand off my arm. He took a breath and said, almost gently, “Don’t make me said I told you so.”_

_I felt my heart skip a few essential beats and blamed it on terror. He was just worried about getting back to his damn fishing boat, I told myself._

_ I nodded then got up as he took out his pistol, crouching close to the ground. _

_ I sprinted across the open field, boots sinking into the soft dirt, crushing the green grass under my soles. I dived to the ground next to the soldier. He was gasping for breath, his short, pained inhalations suggesting he was in shock. _

_ “Guten—um,” I stammered, a long way from the “Useful German Phrases” they introduced us to in training. I cast my eyes over his curled figure, seeing that he was bleeding from his leg, a leg which had been bandaged roughly and since bleed through, “I’m a doctor—medic,” I said in a loud voice, “I want to help—Hilfe.” _

_ "Amerikanischer Hurensohn - ich brauche deine Hilfe nicht!" he gasped out, hands clutching his leg. He had cuts and other small wounds all over him. The arm of his uniform was soaked in blood. His face was a mess of half-dried blood, running in paths down his colourless face. _

_ Oh no, this wasn’t going to be hard. His tone wasn’t hard to translate but I would be angry too if I was him. And afraid. Maybe he thinks I’m going to kill him. Our side gets told all kinds of lies about Germans, who knows what he’s being fed about us. _

_ I pointed to my sleeve where there was a medical symbol, “Medic,” I said again, “I’m not going to hurt you,” I tried to keep my voice even and calm, hoping that it would reassure him, “I’m going to look at your leg, okay? I’m just—” _

_“Ich bring dich um, geh weg von mir!”_

_I was about to reach for his arm, pull it away from his leg, when everything went to hell._

_I froze, the moment dramatic enough that I could almost imagine the hands of huge clock clicking to a halt, my own actions slowing to a syrupy crawl._

_ My eyes took an eternity to shift downwards and see that his leg was the least of his worries. Somewhere in the back of my head I recognized the German word for “kill” at the same moment he shifted his arms from across his chest, exposing his, until then, hidden midsection. The fabric peeled away from his stomach, sticky with blood, and as he twisted to reach for the pistol at his side the huge hole in his gut stretched, innards spilling out as all of a sudden the clock started again and I was staring down the barrel of a gun. My arm shot forward and pushed his hand skyward in the kind of instinctual action that only happens when your life is in danger. The pistol went off, the explosion of gunpowder reverberating down both our arms, nearly making me fall backwards from where I’d risen up on my knees. _

_ The German twisted in my grip, trying to free his hand, fighting to point the pistol back at me. Suddenly it was muscle to muscle, his strength verses mine, each of us struggling with both our hands, the gun between us. My brain had pumped another dose of adrenaline into my brain but there was no mistaking that he was stronger than me. Too strong. It all came down to this. Him and me. The point of the gun was arching steadily lower, back to me. _

_ I let go with one of my hands, causing him to lose his balance, using that free arm to throw a punch that connected, barely, with the side of his jaw. It was enough. He was thrown, head jerking backwards on his neck, fingers loosening enough for me to wrench at his hold on the pistol. I heard another shot but it didn’t matter, he dropped the gun and lunged forward, both hands meeting my chest, knocking me backwards and suddenly two hands were at my throat. Choking me. And they weren’t letting go. They were getting tighter. _

_ I gasped, wind-pipe crushing under his hands. I arched my back, twisting, trying to throw him off, but couldn’t. His grip tightened even more around my throat. I couldn’t even gasp. Can’t breathe. I thrashed, kicked, clawed at his hands. Nothing. He’s not letting go. Oh god. Hot wetness spilled over me and I barely registered that it was this man’s guts gushing out over me even as he was killing me. My body fought but I was starting to feel my mind dull and dim, eyes losing focus. No air. No air. No air. Can’t— _

_ Suddenly blackness. A sense that I missed something. My lungs are gasping for air. I’m breathing. _

_ Pain. I know I’ve been shot. How bad? I don’t know. I know it must have been the second shot the German had fired and I know that I’m bleeding. _

_ Tim was holstering his pistol as I struggled to untangle my legs from under me, feeling dizzy and disorientated. He gripped my shoulders and dragged me to my feet, hurting me somewhere—where? Shoulder. My shoulder? Shot. Oh yeah, shot. _

_ I could hear myself coughing, gasping, but I couldn’t stop myself. Air .There’s air now. Tim slung an arm around my waist and it’s only when he’s so near to me that I can hear he’s speaking, swearing, voice shaking and broken and nearly incomprehensible, “—Jesus Christ, fucking German shot you—fucking—Wilson! Wilson!” My legs suddenly disappeared and I sunk through dark water, kicking frantically back to the surface before I even hit the ground, Tim gathering my uncooperative body in his arms, half-dragging, half-carrying me, “Come on,” he gasped near my ear, “You’re not hurt that bad, you’re alright, you’re not hurt, you’re not hurt, come on, come on, you’re okay, you’re fine, you’re okay.” _

_ I felt my back hit the dirt and I knew we’d made it back to our partial hiding place by the trees. Can’t remember what happened. Can’t remember the last few minutes. Can’t—the German had been strangling me, I hadn’t been able to reach my pistol, and then, and then—Tim. Tim had shot him. I saw a flash of the back of the German’s head exploding, sending half of his brain splattering across the grass. _

_ I was on my back, Tim above me, ripping at my buttons with shaking hands, “How bad is it?” he demanded, jerking the rough wool open. I tried sitting up, struggling, but he pushed me forcefully back down, still talking, “You had to help him,” he said angrily as he pulled my tunic off, almost being careful of my right shoulder where I’d been shot, otherwise jerking the garment from my limbs with unhindered temper, “Even though you knew you’d probably get hurt—or killed—you had to help him anyway—Christ, out of all the guys I end up with it has to be with the one that thinks he has to save everyone.” _

_ I craned my neck inward and to the side, trying to look at my wound, but couldn’t. The amount of blood made it hard to see and I was dizzy. So dizzy. I fought the weakness, screaming at myself to pull myself together, to think clearly, but I couldn’t. I let my head fall back to the ground, closing my eyes, not even in pain. My brain hadn’t registered it yet. I’m not shot. I’m just resting. Fine. Totally fine. I’m okay. _

_ “Wilson!” Tim cried, shaking me, thinking I’d passed out again. _

_ I opened my eyes and tried to focus on his face, “No—no, I’m fine,” my voice was rough, I could barely talk. Had to. Come on, Wilson, I thought to myself, come on, don’t let him see you like this. I licked my lips, breath still coming in short, shallow gasps, “I just,” I tried taking a deep breath, almost doing it, “I just can’t—I can’t see it—you gotta rip my shirt,” I couldn’t keep my head up so I didn’t, letting it fall back again, “I-I don’t think it’s that bad,” I finished lamely, eyes rolling back in my head. _

_ Yeah, not that bad? What happens when infection sets in? People don’t die from getting shot—they die from infections. They die slow, painful deaths over weeks and weeks. You can never get a wound all the way clean. Not here. Not in these conditions. _

_ Tim brought his hands to my shirt, hesitating, “Shit, you’re bleeding all over the place,” his own panicked breathing was interrupting his words, breaking them apart. Without anymore hesitation he gripped the fabric of my undershirt and ripped, causing me to cry out, back arching, gasping for breath then clamping the rest of the screams I wanted to scream behind clenched teeth. He fell back onto his heels, pushing the rim of his helmet back to run the back of a bloody hand across his brow, “Okay,” he said, sounding desperate, “Now what do I do?” _

_ “Um,” I forced my head up to look at it, had to, but only saw blood. The sight made my eyes squeeze shut as I sucked in a shuddering breath. Not focused. Still not focused. What’s the matter with me? I tried again, “You have to stop the bleeding,” I said. He was sitting forward again and I caught a flash of his bright blue eyes from behind my half-lidded eyes, “Apply pressure to the wound, if I lose too much blood I’ll—” _

_ “Yeah, yeah,” he stopped me, “Okay,” he put both his hands over my shoulder, positioning the heel of his hand just over the wound but not touching, “I’m—” he stammered, “I don’t want to hurt you.” _

_ “You won’t,” I gasped, “Can’t feel anything anyway—just do it.” _

_ He did. Suddenly there was pain. I think I screamed. _

_I must have passed out. I jerked awake, automatically rising up on my elbows then biting back a howl of pain from my shoulder, falling back to the ground, eyes squeezed shut._

_“Smart,” Larson said from next to me. He was sitting next to me, arms resting on bent knees._

_I opened my eyes, breathing shallowly, “I thought I heard something.”_

_“Maybe it’s another German soldier you can risk your life trying to save,” he retorted, then paused, the tone in his voice almost edging on civil, “It’s nothing—try and sleep some more.”_

_I decided to put off getting up for a few minutes. I left my eyes open, staring up into the huge dark sky. There weren’t any stars. Crickets chirped loudly all around us in the tall grass and a light breeze was stirring the leaves of the tree we were under. I looked to the side, at my shoulder, and saw it was bandaged. It was throbbing dully. Tim must have stopped the bleeding. Bandaged it._

_“I passed out,” I said needlessly._

_“I like you better unconscious anyway,” he mumbled._

_“Did you get the bullet out?”_

_“It just grazed you.”_

_Grazed me._

_ I almost laughed. I never was a lucky guy. _

_ Still, it must have gone pretty deep to cause all that blood. I took a breath, filling my lungs, feeling them expand in my chest, holding onto the thought that I was going to be okay and that I hadn’t made a mistake. More importantly that Larson hadn’t saved my life. _

_ I let out the breath and licked my lips, the sudden quiet making me nervous, needing to say something, anything, “I read somewhere that the Germans have technology that lets them see in the dark . . .” I said to Larson’s still form, “Do you think that’s true?” _

_Larson laughed shortly but it didn’t last. Where there should have been a quick retort there was only silence and after a moment he said in a hushed voice, “I dunno.”_

_I risked sitting up, using my good arm to shove myself upright, then bent my knees, keeping my right arm limp at my side. Larson glanced once at me then returned his eyes to the open blackness. I doubt he could see anything. I could barely make out the outline of his helmet and his vague profile in the moonlight, the wetness of his eyes visible for an instant then gone again._

_“I can take over,” I heard myself say, wincing as I accidently moved my arm._

_“No you can’t.”_

_“Look, I appreciate it but I’m alright, really.”_

_“You got shot.”_

_“Grazed.”_

_“You lost a lot of blood.”_

_“I’m a trained US soldier,” I scoffed, “I can take it.”_

_“You’re an idiot—you traded in your brain for your dog-tags.”_

_“Again—I’m a trained US soldier, what do I need brains for?”_

_“We don’t need spleens but we still have them,” he shot back._

_“Jesus Larson,” I sighed, bringing my uninjured hand to my forehead to push at some dirty, messy hair before sighing and asking with closed eyes, “What is your problem?”_

_“Nothing,” he mumbled, then seemed to think twice, voice rising, “You know some of us want to live through this war. Some of us have plans for when this is all over.”_

_I sighed, “What was I supposed to do?” I winced, my whole right side throbbing in pain, “Let him die?”_

_“Yeah,” he said emotionlessly, not looking at me._

_“Just because he was German?”_

_“We’re fighting them, they’re why we’re stuck here—yeah, because he was German.”_

_I sighed, wishing not for the first time that there was a minefield close by that I could accidently shove him into, “Even German’s deserve a second chance, or a third chance, or however many chances it takes—we might be at war but we can still do the right thing,” I closed my eyes, knowing I’d have to look at my shoulder soon._

_ “Making way for a better future, yeah, I saw the recruitment poster,” he lifted his helmet off his head and set it down next to his hip, tilting his head to look up into the sky. _

_ I gave up talking to him. I think my shoulder was going to be okay. Keep it bandaged, clean, or at least as clean as I can keep it, and it’ll be fine. Thanks to Larson. The same nauseous feeling came over me at the thought of owing him anything, but I couldn’t help feeling grateful, and maybe a little surprised. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all, I heard myself think, then denied ever thinking it. _

_ I tried moving my shoulder and barely bit back a cry of pain. But then even wiggling a single finger on my right hand was having the same affect. I shrugged my jacket off from where Tim had put it over me like a blanket, feeling hot. _

_ He sensed my movement and turned, “What are you doing?” _

_ “I feel hot,” I answered. _

_ “Hot as in, fever hot?” _

_ “No—just—I want to look at it, my shoulder.” _

_ “That’s not a good idea.” _

_ “I’m the medic, not you.” _

_ “How could you even see? It’s night.” _

_ “I could see if you got out of my light,” I said through clamped teeth. _

_ “Fine,” he consented hotly, getting up. He moved out from the ray of moonlight and sat himself, aggressively, on my other side, bumping my other shoulder as he did so, “Good enough, Doctor?” _

_ “Perfect,” I replied dryly, starting to unwrap my bandage. I would have liked to wash it but we didn’t have enough water. I had some things in my bag but right now, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do. I eased off the first fold of the cloth, wincing as it pulled away from my flesh, threads sticking to the dried blood. _

_ `“Do you have to—” Tim sighed in aggravation, “Let me do that—you can’t do anything with one hand,” he sat up, moving in front of me, forcing me to shift my legs out of the way. _

_“Larson . . .” I sighed._

_“Just—” he started sharply, then stopped himself, lowering his voice, “Just let me.”_

_He put a hand on my arm, slowly, more gently than I thought he was capable and peeled away the bandage. His hands were steady, fingers warm on my skin. Almost tender. He slowed, hands suddenly still on my arm._

_“What are you doing?” I asked suddenly, tensing._

_“I’m conducting a symphony orchestra, what does it look like I’m doing?”_

_“You’re being . . . gentle.”_

_“I don’t want to hurt you anymore than you are,” he said in irritation, scoffing. His eyes darted to me then quickly away. He lifted my arm to unwrap the bandage, carefully easing it upward a few inches, unfurling a length of cloth under my arm, then back down._

_I felt myself sigh, eyes closing, then opened them, looking at his face which was blank in concentration. I frowned, “You’re good with your hands,” I told him. It came out reluctantly, through gritted teeth, sounding more like an insult than a compliment. Me helpless and him helping wasn’t the best set up._

_“I wouldn’t have to be if you’d just listened to me,” he growled._

_“I’m the one that got shot,” I said, tired, head pounding, shoulder on fire, “Why are you so angry?”_

_“Because if you’d died I probably wouldn’t have made it back alive!” he nearly shouted in anger, hands stopping. He lowered his voice, shaking his head, “And even if I did make it back by myself I’d have to take your dog tags back so they’d have something to send home to your parents,” he took a breath, “You think I would have wanted to watch you die?” his eyes lifted to mine under his dirty and furrowed brow, then lowered, “Even if I can’t stand you,” his hands started to work again. I couldn’t respond. I noticed then, now that he was facing the light, that there were trails of clean skin through the grime over his face, leading from his eyes to his shadowy jaw-line. He’d been crying._

_He kept talking in a low voice, “I just want to get home—maybe if I spend the rest of my life on a boat I can forget I was ever here.”_

_“Not the boat again,” I groaned, not knowing if I could handle anymore. We weren’t doing okay together when we were both healthy, now with me injured there’s no way we’re both going to make it back alive, “I’ve already been shot, are you just trying to torture me now?”_

_“That’s exactly what I want,” he retorted sarcastically, “that’s why I shot that German and saved your life.”_

_I’ve just been shot. My shoulder hurts. My whole right side hurts and he’s being sarcastic. And the worst part? Aside from being nearly strangled to death and losing a large amount of blood? Larson was right. He was right. I shouldn’t have tried saving that German. I should have just ignored him and moved on like Larson had said. If I had I wouldn’t have gotten shot and none of this would have happened. Except it had. And even if I had the chance to do it all again, I know what I’d do. I know what I’d do the second time around or the hundredth time around. I’d help him._

_ Somehow that thought wasn’t comforting. I’m not a saint. I’m not even that good of a person. So why do I have to save everyone? I can’t save myself but I want to give everything I have to other people? That doesn’t make any sense. But as far as I know, what I want shouldn’t matter, I should just ignore it, just concentrate on what other people want, what they need. Am I that insecure? I can’t admit what I want, what I need, so I’ll bend over backwards to give other people what they want, just so I don’t have to ask myself the hard questions? Does that make me a good person? Does taking that bullet make me a good person? _

_ “I’m starting to wish you hadn’t,” I said, both as a response to him and to my own internal monologue that was arguably more painful than the gunshot wound. I could feel myself starting to shake from frustration and fatigue. _

_“Yeah?” Larson responded with a short laugh, his tone equally if not more frustrated, “Maybe next time I won’t save you, spare us both the trouble,” he stopped, looked up at me, dark blonde hair stirring in a slight breeze. His eyes seemed challenging at first, mouth quirked to the side in an expression that faded slowly as he looked at me, his brow un-furrowing. He seemed angry that he was no longer angry, taking a slow breath through his nose as tension edged his shoulders higher, distraction weighing in his eyes. But he still looked at me. I blinked, swallowing, meeting his eyes. He wasn’t unwrapping my bandage anymore. And though we’d been physically close all this time we’d never intentionally sat close to each other. But now he was sharing my space, inside my boundaries. It made him seem more real. It made it all seem more real. The surreal feeling that seemed to be my brain’s response to trauma and terrible conditions faded, I was grounded again. I wasn’t alone._

_I regained my voice, “I don’t need you to save me,” I said to him, my chest rising and falling heavily as I breathed, making what I’d just said come out in a in a low, breathy voice._

_He blinked, licking his lips, “Sure looked like you did with that German’s hands around your throat,” he said in the same low voice and I was close enough to him that even though he was almost whispering I could still hear him._

_“I would have figured something out,” I said in one breath. My eyes were still on his._

_ He bit his lip, eyes flickering over my face, “I couldn’t just let him kill you,” he said, moonlight shining through his eyelashes, reflecting off the blue irises of his eyes, lips parted slightly.  _

_ He leaned forward, just a few inches, “Corporal,” I said, heart pounding in my chest. The refracted light on his eyes disappeared for a moment as his eyes lowered, then reappeared, his expression unreadable. I didn’t have a chance to ask what he was doing. Instead I found myself tilting my chin upwards as he closed the remaining distance between us, my eyes rolling shut as his lips met mine. Shock, fear, confusion; a swell of all these emotions fought for dominance in my head but the jolt sent by my nervous system through my whole body clouded all other thoughts, all other doubts, and suddenly everything seemed so far away. His hand moved to my chest, tightening on cloth as I took a shuddering inhale through my nose and . . . gave in. I kissed him. I parted my lips, his breath hot on my mouth for a moment as we hung on the edge of making the situation a whole lot worse, the flickering of his tongue past my teeth for only an instant. It probably caught us both by surprise, the startling thrill of hushed, hot kisses and sudden intense closeness. _

_ Our lips came apart with a wet smack, my eyes flying open. I found myself staring into Larson’s confused eyes. His lips were red and swollen, eyes wide, one hand still on my chest. We were both frozen, like it hadn’t caught up with us what had happened. All I could hear was the wind blowing through the trees. _

_ Up until about thirty seconds ago we’d hated each other. Up until about thirty seconds ago I’d never kissed a boy. And any thoughts that I’d had about it had went off to war along with the rest of me. But now everything was different. I had been afraid, and getting over that fear wasn’t some kind of newfound braveness—I’m scared all the time. To me it seemed like there was nothing left to lose. And there was no need for a solution because I might not even make it home. So I kissed him again. _

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Cooper entered the room.

“Jesus,” I gasped, letting out a breath, “You scared me.”

“Sorry, he replied with a small amused smile, lingering in the doorway, “What are you doing?”

“Lost something,” I said quickly, shifting a wooden crate near the Colonel’s cot to the side, finding nothing.

“In here?”

“Yep,” I said, resisting the urge to say something sarcastic, my patience not only for the current situation but everything as a whole not exactly surplus at the moment, “Colonel’s not back yet is he?”

“No, still down at the other end,” Cooper took a hesitant step forward, wary of being somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, eyes scanning the room nervously, “God knows how he manages to get around.

I didn’t make a reply. There were a lot of possible answers, and as a medic I was the most qualified to say what they were, but I didn’t offer any. I was afraid to say anything about the Colonel.

“You know how people say he hurt his leg?” Cooper asked conversationally, shoving his hands into his pockets and scanning the ceiling as he rocked back slightly on his heels, “There are a lot of theories actually—no one really knows which one’s the truth.”

I crouched nearer to the floor, reaching my hand under the bed, stretching my fingertips over the dirt packed floor, searching for anything besides dust and rocks but finding nothing.

“The first one I heard,” Cooper started above me, “Was that he was being held captive by a German Commander and barely survived being tortured for three whole months. God only knows what they did to him—almost chopped his leg off trying to get inside information but he never gave in. Apparently—” Cooper said pointedly, “—he escaped by faking his own death. Once the Army figured out that he wasn’t actually dead they sent him out here.”

I sat up. It wasn’t under the bed.

“Another rumor,” Cooper carried on, “Is that he hurt his leg fighting off thirty German soldiers with nothing but a wooden plank with a nail sticking out of it to defend himself.”

I stopped searching long enough to throw Cooper a dubious look, “That’s ridiculous.”

“Just what I hear,” he shrugged innocently, “Last one’s the best—might be the real deal as far as I know—they also say there was some kind of ill-fated romance on his last assignment.”

“What?!” I gasped, heart thumping to a clumsy halt in my chest.

Cooper crossed his arms across his chest with a grin, “From what I heard,” he continued, undeterred, “Colonel House had a brief affair with the daughter of one of Germany’s most notorious Generals, we don’t know which one, and almost persuaded her to defect to our side. Then there was a big battle and he got injured, and I guess her convictions weren’t so strong because she left him, left the resistance, and ended up with a Hungarian,” he drew in a slow breath, “Like I said, who knows—especially with someone like the Colonel.”

“He’s . . . not . . . that bad,” I said brokenly, not even sure why I was defending him.

“Not that bad?” Cooper asked in mild-shock.

I balked, hesitant, “You think he  _ is _ that bad?”

“Isn’t he?”

“Well—” I started, Cooper’s brows raised in disbelief. My eyes shifted sideways, mouth still open. Then I saw it. A glint of silver. Just behind the back left leg of the cot. I dove for it, lifting it and a layer of dust into my palm, “Thank god,” I breathed, letting out a shaking breath. My eyes closed and I closed my fingers around the small piece of metal.

“I will say one thing about the guy,” Cooper continued, unaware that I wasn’t paying attention, “He’s one hell of a soldier.”

“Let’s get outta here,” I said to Cooper and he nodded. We just made it out the door when the Colonel suddenly ducked into the bunker.

“Sir,” Cooper addressed him, standing up straight and saluting him. I did the same, falling into position next to Cooper. I could hear the rain outside. It was raining. Again. The Colonel was soaked. Soaked to the degree where there’s no point anymore in going inside of finding an umbrella. The added weight of his rain-drenched clothes seemed to be dragging him slowly to the floor, exhaustion evident in his every movement. His center of gravity swaying from left to right, face pale, more like a reflection on a pane of glass than an actual person.

“Stop saluting,” he growled, “All the German spies will know which one of us is the commanding officer. I dropped my arm, followed by Cooper.

“Sergeant,” he said and I jerked my eyes to him, my breath closed behind tight lips. His eyes were pupil-large and bloodshot, the rim of blue around the iris almost not visible, “You’re with me.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, sharing a quick panicked look with Cooper before he slipped away. I followed the Colonel, wordless, ducking into his room after him.

The last few steps to his cot were a one legged lurch, his right leg stiff and unmoving under him. He lowered himself onto the bed as I took a seat at his work table. He took off his coat and shook it out, droplets of water flying, then threw it to the end of the cot. Next he leaned over and tugged the laces of his muddy left boot loose, twisting the worn leather from his foot until it thumped loudly to the packed dirt floor. He was more careful with his right foot, undoing the laces all the way then slipping it off. After he was done he moaned and stretched out his right leg so much that I could see his toes spreading out under his khaki sock.

I watched the whole thing, a frown slowly appearing on my face, then said, “Did you . . . need me for something?”

He looked up, “No.”

“Then why . . .” I started, then trailed off as he jerked his braces from his shoulders and lifted both legs onto the bed, “ . . . am I here?”

“Got somewhere else to be?” he asked, leaning back against the wooden planks at the head of his bed, eyes shifting to me..

I paused, mouth open, still frowning, “There’s nothing we need to talk about?”

He considered, briefly, “Nope.”

“I should be—”

“Should be what? Composing a requiem? There’s not a whole lot to do here if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, I’m sure I can find something,” I said angrily, standing up.

I took one step and was stopped by his voice, “Wilson.” I turned. He lowered his eyes, lips pressed together. Both his eyebrows raised and he took a breath, “I . . . like having you here.”

“What?” I asked, confused. I’d heard what he said, I just didn’t understand.

“You being here. I like it.”

I shifted from on foot to the other, not sitting back down, “Why?”

He looked up, eyes level with mine, “It’s . . . peaceful.”

One corner of my mouth turned down at that as I frowned. I certainly didn’t feel peaceful. But nonetheless I took two slow steps back to my chair and sat down, both of us silent for a moment as I situated myself again, “I didn’t know I had that effect on people.”

“Maybe it’s just me,” he said in a low voice, then changed his tone, “You were in my room.”

I couldn’t keep the shocked look from my face, blinking several times, stalling in an attempt to come up with some way to deny it.

“Everything’s out of place,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I must have missed the sleuthing seminar during basic training,” I said, “How’s your leg?”

“I just walked the entire trench, what do you think?”

“There are other assignments. With that injury you could—”

“Get a desk job? No thanks. I love my country too much to pick up a pen and let the fascists win.”

“People are talking about you, trying to figure out how you ended up here.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

“You never answered.”

“I take it back—you’re not peaceful.”

“I want to know the truth.”

“About? Life in general? Death is the only certainty, love is the only thing that makes life worth living, and a peanut butter sandwich will always land face down.”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, letting out a sigh. That about summed it up. I looked back down and found him watching me, “I’m sorry, but,” I smiled slightly, “Love is all you need?”

“It’s in our nature to love.”

“It’s in our nature to hate.”

“Same spectrum.”

I fixed him with a lingering look, not sure I agreed with that. I wanted to think they were separate things.

“So,” he asked brightly, “What were you looking for?”

I resisted another sigh, “Tim—Larson,” I corrected myself, “I kept his rank insignia—I lost it last . . . night,” I finished awkwardly, cutting off that line of thought.

“Find it?”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

He paused, face serious, “I wish I could say his death meant something,” he started, “It’s—”

“It didn't mean anything,” I interrupted, watching his shocked expression but continuing anyway, “He didn’t die a good death, he didn’t help win the war, he—” I lowered my eyes, “He died for nothing,” I licked my lips, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye, I didn’t get to say anything.

I heard the Colonel take in a deep breath, “It wouldn’t have made a difference,” he said.

“Yes it would have,” I retorted, “You don’t understand.”

He said nothing for a moment, the sound of rain outside just audible, “I understand more than you know.”

I looked up suddenly, realizing it was beyond the point of denying Tim and I but realizing I was being careless talking about it like I was.

“Are you going to report me?” I asked tightlipped, unable to keep the anger from my voice. This was his plan all along?

“I could,” he said flatly.

“Then why don’t you?”

“Too much paperwork,” he answered, then looked to the side distantly, “Besides,” his eyes shifting upwards then back to me, “I need you.”

“For what exactly?” I asked, making it a weighted question.

He didn’t look at me, shoulder slumped, “What kind of answer do you want?”

“The kind that explains why you need me.”

“Because you’re a doctor, because there’s no one else, because . . . ” he finally looked up. I raised both my eyebrows in a questioning look. “Because you don’t have anyone either—you need me, I need you, the mutual needing thing usually works out well.”

“I don’t need you.” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets, “If I think I do then I need my head examined.”

“See?” he said, crossing his arms behind his head, “Now you know why sitting and not talking is better than talking.” I rolled my eyes at that, “There are better things to do with your time,” he said, arching his back to get more comfortable on the creaky cot, “I’m sure you and the Corporal figured that one out before his bell tolled.”

Icy water hit my gut. “Excuse me?”

“I inferred—you know, from what your non-sexual bunk-mate had said, the burglar-ing—oh, and the mess all over my sheets this morning.”

“We—”

“Were close, got it—did you love him?”

“What?”

“Love—I read about it somewhere, something about parting being such sweet sorrow—getting shot to death and dying in a mud bath doesn’t sound too sweet though. Could be wrong.”

“So I guess a bum leg means a bum heart too—do you find pleasure in mocking people that have lost someone they love?”

“So you did love him,” he nodded, “I‘m sure your family would have been happy when you brought him home after the war.”

“What are you trying to do? Discredit anything I’ve ever felt or gay relationships in general? You can’t doom something from the start just because the odds are against you.”

“But you can if the whole nation is against you. Or the world.”

“Yes, I can tell that you really give a damn what people think—it’s never too late to live the American dream, that’s what we’re fighting for after all.”

“Not what I’m fighting for.”

“Then what? To stop the Huns? Propaganda has the strongest effect on the weak-minded.”

“I don’t care about the Germans,” he said in a low tone.

“Then why are you here?”

“Why do you care what I’m fighting for?” he asked defensively. I could sense his anxiety. He was lying and I knew it, “Keep your reasons—keep fighting for that perfect wife in a small Midwestern town, healing the sick, with a nice male nurse on the side to appease your unnatural urges—aim high, Wilson.”

“Yeah right,” I said, “With my luck I’ll probably end up back in the states with you—it’s no fun being shell-shocked alone.”

“Sounds good,” he said with a nod.

“What does?”

He looked up, gesturing to me then himself, “You and me—we’re a thing.”

“Since when?”

“Since now—can you cook?”

“You’re extremely aggravating, you know that right?”

“Am I? Good to know—aggravate is such a versatile verb, don’t you think?”

“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself.”

He looked up at me, a small smile on his lips, “Come here.” I gave him my best put-out look, scowling, then sighed. I thought I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to do this but instead I found myself stepping over to his cot, crossing my arms 

Colonel House looked up at me, “If you aren’t interested I’d understand,” he drew in a sharp inhale, “We can forget last night ever happened,” he studied my face, “Or, if you are attracted to me, and want to make the best out of a terrible situation,” he trailed off.

I took a moment, trying to make sense of what he’d said, of him, then rolled my eyes, “I’m not going to be your,” I struggled to find a word,  _ sex slave, cabin boy _ , giving up, “That is not why I’m here and not what I would, should expect from a commanding officer.”

“Good,” he ran a thumb over his temple, “Because that wasn’t what I was asking,” I relaxed slightly, “All of life, and death, is dependent on chance. And meeting you, by chance, may be the best thing to happen since the war began.”

This caught me off guard, “I don’t--”

He stood up shakily, “Deny the connection between us,” his eyes were level with mine, wide and defiant, “And I’ll leave you alone.”

Was it possible? Two people meeting just by chance, in the trenches of a war, far from home, miserable in the mud and the sickness, and somehow, beyond all reason or hope, find actual connection? 

The pause seemed too much for him, he turned his head, “Or call me a filthy pervert that likes to be jerked off by other men and is bound for hell, whichever.”

“Hey,” I grabbed his arm, “Can you just give me a moment,” he shot back a severe look at me as I lowered my voice, “I’m not going to deny what happened last night, or that I enjoyed it, obviously, but I’m not going to shout it so loud the Germans could hear it across No Man’s Land,” he took a breath, “It’s just not done. These . . . things, are done in secret, that’s it.”His close proximity was enough to affirm the visceral, almost instinctual reaction he had on me. I couldn’t explain it. 

I dropped my hand from his arm, “I am drawn to you but there are a million reasons to stay away from you.”

“Sergeant!” Robertson came stumbling clumsily to a halt in the doorway, “The runner, Stewart, he’s been injured! Need you!”

The moment instantly broken, I felt my body kick into high gear, all concerns about House and whatever proposition he had just made blurring on the outskirts of my focused panic. I glanced quickly at House who nodded and rushed to follow Robertson. If the runner had been injured it could mean we were in for trouble. All of this wouldn’t matter. We might not make it out alive.

**Author's Note:**

> I am no historian, so suspend your disbelief where nessesary, just know the important part, I love House and Wilson. And have watched Blackadder 10 times?


End file.
